10 Naxals including area commander held in major crackdown

Police claimed a major attack in Delhi and NCR has been averted with the arrest.

PTI|

Updated: Jul 13, 2018, 10.48 PM IST

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IG (Special Task Force) Aseem Arun said nine Naxals were arrested from Noida during night-long raids that continued till this morning. (Representative image)

NOIDA: In a major success, the Uttar Pradesh Police nabbed 10 Naxals including a self-styled commander carrying a reward of Rs 5 lakh during simultaneous raids here and in Chandauli district which yielded a huge cache of arms and weapons.

Police claimed a major attack in Delhi and NCR has been averted with the arrest.

IG (Special Task Force) Aseem Arun said nine Naxals were arrested from Noida during night-long raids that continued till this morning.

Of the nine, six were picked up last night and three this morning. Another was arrested from Chandauli, adjoining Bihar, he said.

Giving details, the STF officer said that acting on a tip off, a raid was conducted in an apartment in Sector 49 here.

Pradeep Singh Kharwar from Bariatu village in Jharkhand's Latehar district was arrested during a joint operation by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and intelligence agencies last night.

The self-styled area commander was hiding in Noida since February 2012. He carried a reward of Rs 5 lakh on his arrest.

These Naxals were active in eastern UP and adjoining parts of Bihar and had made Noida their base. They had rented two flats and posed as property dealers, Arun said.

He said 550 live cartridges, an INSAS rifle, two other rifles and three self-loading rifle magazines were recovered from them besides a huge quantity of explosives and detonators.

The recovery of the INSAS rifle showed that they must have looted it from security personnel as the weapon is used by them against the ultras, he said.

He also said that one of those arrested, Ranjit Paswan, owed allegiance to erstwhile People's War Group. He used to be the self-styled area commander of PWG and was active in Sasaram district of Bihar.

The IG said more arrests are likely as the crackdown on the left-wing extremists would continue.